Discovered attack: knight to f3 (d4)
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The tactical motive
Discovered attack: one piece steps aside, unleashing another's attack.
Double attack: one move creates two threats at once.
Difficulty 1355 ShuffleRating — club-player level.
Black to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
A discovered attack fires when one piece steps aside and unmasks the piece behind it. Look for your own units that block a rook, bishop or queen: moving the front piece — ideally with a threat of its own — springs two attacks in one move.
A double attack threatens two things at once so the opponent cannot parry both. Look for a single move — often a queen or knight — that creates two separate threats, such as a check plus an attack on a loose piece.
General method: before you move, list the forcing candidates — every check, every capture, every direct threat — and calculate those first. The solution to a tactic is almost always among them.
Position on the board
White: king g1, queen f6, rook a1 f1, knight f4, pawn a2 b2 f3.
Black: king g4, queen c4, rook h8, bishop b6, knight d4, pawn h6 a7 h7.
8 white and 8 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 27.
The position in numbers
White are ahead by 2 points of material (25 against 23; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on g1, the black king on g4.
It is Black to move on move 27, with 2 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle. Black are in check right now, so every reply must answer the check.
White keeps 3 pawns, Black 3. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): c, d, e, g — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for Black: b, f.
The Black king has 1 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
27... Nxf3+ 28. Kh1 Qxf4 29. Qxf4+ Kxf4
Why it works
- Great move! knight to f3 keeps the pressure (+2.6).
- Well found: queen to f4 (+2.9).
- Strong! king to f4 is the sharp choice (+2.7).
- You win a piece — the queen.
- If instead Kh1, then Qxf4 and you win the knight.
Move by move
- 27… Nxf3+ — knight to f3 (capture) with check
- 28. Kh1 — king to h1
- Qxf4 — queen to f4 (capture)
- 29. Qxf4+ — queen to f4 (capture) with check
- Kxf4 — king to f4 (capture)
Types in this puzzle
Discovered attack
A piece steps aside and opens a second attack from the piece behind it.
A discovered attack works like a curtain: one piece steps off the line and unveils the long-range piece behind it. The beauty is that the moving piece can create a second threat of its own — two attacks in one move. Look for your stacked pairs: a bishop or rook behind a knight or pawn, aimed through them at something valuable. Send the front piece to the most aggressive square — a discovery without a second threat wastes half its power.
Counter-strike
Don't defend — answer the threat with a bigger one.
The counter-strike: instead of defending against the threat, you answer with a bigger threat of your own. While your opponent grabs a pawn, you deliver mate — the arithmetic favors you. Look for a counter when direct defenses fail: do you have a check, an attack on the queen, a mating threat? The beginner's error is meeting every threat with a reflexive defense without checking the counterattacking resources first.
Double check
Two pieces give check at once — only a king move can answer.
A double check is check from two pieces at once: the one that moved and the one it unveiled. Blocking or capturing is useless against two checks — only a king move helps. Look for a discovered check where the front piece can give check as well. It is the most forcing move in chess: you may even hang your queen with it, because nobody has time to take her.
Provenance
Derived from the Lichess puzzle database (CC0).
Verified by Stockfish at depth 20+.
Solution forcedness confirmed (verified).
Pack 010
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